Obie Math Summer 2026

This past summer, Oberlin students, faculty, and alumni engaged in an exciting array of mathematical research, study abroad programs, and conference presentations across the globe.

Jacob Pellechia '26, Izzy Snyder '23, Claire Djang '13, and Tuan Dung (Brian) Do '24 attended Bridges 2026: Mathematics and the Arts at the University of Galway in Ireland from August 5–8, 2026. All four Obies are former students of Professor Bob Bosch '85. Jacob, Brian, and Bob presented their work on the intersection of mathematics and art at the conference.

August Fogler '27 spent the summer in Hungary participating in the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics (BSM) program. August completed coursework in deep learning models and explored mathematics pedagogy through the partner program, Budapest Semesters in Mathematics Education (BSME), focusing on guided discovery in the classroom. August noted that working with international faculty and taking specialized courses was a highlight of the experience. 

Zoe Cox '27 (center) participated in the Summer@ICERM REU, working in small teams to investigate open research problems, give talks, and write up research results. Mentored by Dr. Amanda Harsy, Zoe's team studied a combinatorial graph theory problem arising from self-assembling DNA nanostructures, seeking to generalize and prove the optimal number of molecular tiles required to realize specific families of nanostructures under varying geometric constraint.

Maike dos Santos Silva '28 conducted summer research under Dr. Luya Wang at Princeton University. Maike investigated how methods from symplectic topology and Floer homology can be applied to the Square Peg Problem—a celebrated mathematical conjecture that has remained open for over a century. The work involved studying foundational literature and analyzing recent topological approaches to the problem.

David Bronshvayg '27 and Reed Wang '26 attended MAA MathFest 2026 in Boston, MA. Both presented posters highlighting their research with Oberlin Mathematics Professor Rachel Diethorn on differential graded algebras and edge ideals.

Tani Nevins-Klein '29 (left) attended the 2026 International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in Philadelphia, PA, taking in talks by featured speakers Terence Tao, Tamar Ziegler, and Hong Wang.

Also at the ICM, Oberlin alumna Cynthia Vinzant '07 (University of Washington) delivered an invited Section Lecture titled The Geometry of Polynomials for Log-Concavity and Expansion. Her talk surveyed recent developments in functional log-concavity, focusing on multivariate generating polynomials and their applications to combinatorial inequalities, matroid theory, and approximate sampling algorithms.

Yangyang (Alexandra) Du '22, Isaac Viviano '25, and Oberlin Computer Science Professor Howard Levinson attended and presented their research at the 2026 SIAM Annual Meeting (AN26) in Cleveland, OH.

Isabel (Izzy) Pfaff '25, currently a mathematics PhD student at Tulane University, had a productive summer of professional development. Izzy attended the Roots of Unity workshop at the AIM headquarters at Caltech, which supports early-stage graduate students from underrepresented backgrounds in their transition to research. Izzy also participated in the two-week Gene Golub SIAM Summer School on Fault-Tolerant Algorithms in Quantum Computing at Duke University, and capped off the summer by passing PhD qualifying exams.

Professor Jack Calcut, Rob McConkey '14 (Assistant Professor at Colorado State University Pueblo), Yangyang (Alexandra) Du '22, and Jamie Phillips-Freedman '26 attended the 43rd Annual Workshop in Geometric Topology (WGT 2026) at Utah Valley University. Alexandra and Jamie both conducted honors research in topology with Jack. At the workshop, Jack, Rob, and Jamie presented talks on their research.

Jamie Phillips-Freedman '26 presenting on prime theta-curves at WGT 2026.

Rob McConkey '14 presenting on the new theta-invariant of knots at WGT 2026.

Congratulations and thank you to all of the Obies who shared their summer math activities with us!